Thursday, February 11, 2010

An Old Favorite:

Tomato Soup and Bee El Tees

Back in the days of old, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, wayyyyyy back when I was first wooing J, we hade a night of ol fashioned goodness. Goodness that can only be found in the depths of a bowl of homemade tomato soup. Campbell's you can kiss my tuchus. I do believe the night we made this delicious dinner it was snowing, it was mid January, and we were full swing of our love affair with Sex and the City. What better way to keep warm and aware of the next Jimmy Choo? Tomato soup and Bee El Tees with avocado.

The soup itself is simple. The hardest element in making this soup is avoiding the urge to put garlic and onion in it because if you do... you end up with tomato sauce and at that point you should just throw on a pot of water and boil up some pasta, chump. The soup gets it's delicious earthy and tangy flavor from the melting of sauteed leeks and fire roasted tomatoes. Do I hear wedding bells? You will need some veggie stock for this soup and if you don't make your own than I suppose a box version will do.

Heat up a good size pat of butter in a dutch oven on med-high heat. My Le Creuset is 3 1/2 qts so anything that size or larger will be sufficient. To that butter add the leeks and sautee until the leeks get transparent and fragrant. Add the can of tomatoes and the tomato sauce and stir. Toss in a pinch or two of salt and pepper. You will cook this concoction till the whole tomatoes break down. At this point you have the base for your soup. Transfer the soup into the food processor or blender and add a cup of veggie stock to achieve a soup constistency. The tomato mixture resembles a thick chunky mama sauce and that's not what were aiming for. Once you have reached a full bodied soup consistency transfer your soup back into the dutch oven. Heat on low, and right before serving add 1/4 cup of cream to your soup. Stir and serve. *soy milk can be substituted for a vegan rendition.

My infatuation with sandwiches started when I was young. I'm not afraid to tell the world that my mom packed me a brown bag lunch until I graduated high school. Everyday, I had a sandwich, a veggie, a fruit and a juice box. My sammies were usually a p.b. &j, back when you could eat peanut butter in public schools without the child sitting next to you going into anaphylactic shock (no disrespect to the allergy prone) or a cheese sandwich with spicy brown mustard on jewish rye (raise up your cup, mazel tov). Fast forward future, I still love sandwiches, they're easily my favorite food. There are many haters in the world who don't think that a vegetarian sandwich can be any good, and to that we at O.M.G Food say "STFU". Over at Eat to Blog, they have an incredible vegetarian banh mi recipe. Here is our recipe for a Bee El Tee with Avocado.

In a grill-pan, heat up a tblsp of olive oil and grill the tempeh. While the tempeh is grilling, slice the tomatoes, and prep your lettuce (shred or not to shred, that is the question). Slice and remove the pit from your avocado, set other half aside. Cut the avocado into strips.

Toast your bread at this point, and don't forget to flip your tempeh strips so both sides get crispy and brown. Whip up the mayo, or just dive into the jar that sits in your fridge. Once your bread is toasty, schmear it with some mayo, lay down the avocado, the tomato slices, the lettuce and the tempeh, finish with the other slice of toast, and cut in half. Serve with the tomato soup and dunk like #23.